38 — Wednesday, September 16, 1992 — North Shore News

&

Playing

Sonic Youth’s notes from the underground

ONIC YOUTH do

the dirty; Roxette
X releases a tour
album; hard-to-find Soft
Boys releases surface ina
digital world.

Sonic Youth — Dirty, The
David Geffen Co./MCA Records
1992

In a race with the expectations
of disenfranchised youth flinging
about in the moist murky goop of
the Seattle Sound pool, New
York's Sonic Youth remains a
feedback squeal ahead of the
pack.

Dirty is loaded with the implod-
ed shards of disorderly pop con-
struct. Sonic Youth's creative im-
pulse is firmly seated in creative
mayhem.

Where opening act free-form
ritualistic guitar gestures
bludgeoned the thousands
gathered to warship at the temple
of the Crazy Horse last year in the
Coliseum, Dirty finds the band
working rock at the essential level
of atoms. . .
* fa the process we are left with a
generous share of miasmic grunge
of the highest order.

And Nirvana doesn’t have Kim
Gordon. Her whispered nasties
‘pepper Dirty with a fine feral
snesring.

Cheek out the fireworks as
guitars stalk in lock-step her chok-
‘ed vocai witerances on Orange “-
Rolls, Angel's Spit. :

- . Syntax collapses compietely in a
“jerking blast of punk protoplasm
- by the time track 10 roils along:
“owith Nic Fit. . .
Essentially. Dirty is about ravag-
jing guitars, hurled crescendoes
: and blistering electric flames.

4

Michael Becker
RECORD REVIEW

Sonic Youth offer bits of social
consciousness — they believe in
Anita Hill — but the spark here is
all friction.

Roxette — Tourism, EMI/
Capitol Records 1992

Swedish Slicksville man, even in
pseudo-live, off-the-cuff format. A
tougher duo than the Abba-esque
quartet that preceded them on
such a massive world-rocking,
blockbusting scate in an earlier
and kinder decade, Roxette simi-
larly plug pre-teen pubes with
saccharine ballads and preening
rock strutting.

. They play to teen sensibilities,
but I'm sure there are many older
closet Roxette fans.

This collection includes live ver-
sions of the chart-mongering The
Look and Joyride, as well as new
material recorded during the
1991-92 Join The Joyride world
tour,

Marie Fredriksson, she of the
Volvo-solid Nordic body, gets my

. vote because she hasn't adjusted

the gap between hier front teeth.
Joy-riding pal Per Gessle — the
Roxette words and music man’ —
has kept the band massive and
platinum-selling by virtue of -
puerile lyrics and deadly-effective

NV puppeteer offers

three-hour workshops

PARENTS. CONCERNED. about
their children’s educational de-
-Velopment may want to take ad-
vantage of a puppetry workshop
being offered. this -fall by North
Vancouver puppeteer Marjorie
Woods.”

Woods has been an active pup-

peteer for more than 15 years, giv-

ing courses for adults as well as
children at the Vancouver School
Board, the University of B.C., and
Naramata Centre.

In the three-hour workshops,
Woods: will show you how to
make simple puppets and how to
use them to involve young
children in storytelling and free
play.
"Parents and teachers can learn

Lew + Me 4

She Dil odeAVE CAPE CAR ing FIC- P8B3F

how puppetry helps children learn
basic concepts, deal with bullying,

_ teasing, with shyness or new situa-

tions like a first trip to the dentist.

Three workshops in all will be
available. The first one begins
Sept. 22 from 7to10 p.m. (Suc-
cessive dates are Oct. 20 and Nov.
17). . .
All classes are held in room 305
at Highlands United Church in
Edgemont Village.

Pre-paid registration is a must.
Send a cheque or money order
with your name, address, phone
number and preferred dates to:
Marjorie _Woods, 4128 Sunset

_ Blyd., North Vancouver, V7R 3Y9.

For. more information contact

. Woods at 987-3725.

irty

pop hooks. Tourism is more of the
same.

The Soft Boys — Invisible Hits
The Soft Boys -- Underwater
Moonlight

The Soft Boys — A Can of

Bees, Robyn Hitchcock/Rykodisc
1992

Before Hitchcock tock on the
Egyptians, he and Kimberly Rew
{of Katrina & the Waves), Morris
Windsor and Andy Metcalfe (both
with the Egyptians), he founded a
band in the mid-1970s and tagged
it the Soft Boys.

From the heady ferment of the
British punk scene, Hitchcock's
odd ramblings took wing on three
cult classics.

The releases have been fed
through the digital tumbler and
reinforced by rare out-takes, B-
sides and alternate versions.

if you can only afford one of
these for the time being, pick up
Underwater Moonlight. It's full of
great songs and sees the band
playing with a wide range of pop
styles.

Lyrically the Ryka re-releases
show Hitchcock was an absurdist
treasure from the beginning, but
this early stuff shows glimpses of
an exuberant innocence impossi-
ble to find in later works.

Plenty o’ fab tunes — When |
Was A Kid, Wey Wey Hep Uh
Hole, Where Are The Prawns?,
Kingdom Cf Love, Sandra’s Hav-
ing Her Brain Qut -- inclusive.

THRU SEPT.92 ©

425 Quebec-St. CALL TOLL FREE

Victoria, B.C. 1-800-663-7515
V8V 1W7 "
VOV"9 GP a>

MENTION THIS AD FOR YOUR PREFERRED RATE

SONIC YOUTH (left to right, Lee Ranzido, Steve Shelley; Kim ~
Gordon and Thurston Moore) have just released thelr second re-
cording on Gaffen Records. ,

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